Part of plan to bring developing world up to speed
OSSEEM, Egypt: On a brisk morning earlier this week, Craig Barrett, chairman of Intel Corporation, stood on a small stage dressed in a shiny pharaoh costume, where he was surrounded by a pack of torch-wielding school kids.
While it was a strange to see a man who made $13.3 million in 2005 ham it up in Pharaonic garb, the reason for Barrett’s visit had little to do with dress up.
Barrett, who also heads up a special UN body tasked with spreading web technology, rolled into this dusty Giza town of Osseem, 17 km north-west of Cairo, as part of a tour of underdeveloped communities, where his company is building computer labs at schools, setting up WiMax broadband wireless networks and creating what Intel calls a “digital village.
“What we’re doing here is for the children . to be productive citizens of the 21st century, said Barrett in front of a crowd of photographers and reporters, who came to a freshly-painted school here.
Along with setting up Wi-Max networks, Intel will donate 100,000 computers and educate 10,000,000 teachers over the next five. In Egypt alone, the plan is to train 650,000 teachers and give away 8,000 computers.
In total, “The World Ahead is budgeted at $1 billion.
With Internet use reaching its saturation point in developed countries, the campaign is a bid to spread the web to the world’s next billion users.
It’s an ambitious plan.
According to Barrett, “Intel is committed to support Egypt’s leaders in accelerating access to technology so its people can get better health care, education and work skills.
In Osseem, Intel also set up a computer kiosk where users can tap into government records, which saves them an hour’s trip into Cairo, not to mention the chaos of the Mugama. Plus, a mobile health-care centre was built, so local doctors can confer with specialists over the web for diagnoses and advice.
However, as a crowd of photographers and reporters snapped photos and watched as Barrett chatted with some of the students at the school’s new computer lab, at the other end of the school, the scene was anything but high tech.
Huddled into cramped, wooden desks, a room full of disinterested kids was engaged in a call-and-repeat style geography lesson with a middle-aged teacher, who’s only prop was a ragged map.
Reforming Egypt’s education system, even on a village by village basis will be a Herculean task. Teachers are underpaid and most families prefer to spend a considerable chunk of money on private tutoring.
A World Bank Report released in September of this year slammed Egypt’s school system for its lack of vocational practicality, and Egyptian students scored near the bottom in the region in terms of math and science scores.
“I talked to some of these kids and most of them didn’t even know what the Internet was, says Karim El Bialy from IT Eye magazine, a Cairo-based publication which specializes in articles about the latest Internet technology.
El Bialy adds that changing the student’s frame of mind should be the most important task.
“I think [Intel] has to assess the mentality of the students. They’re not open-minded enough. Intel has a great marketing campaign, but it’s not the right method.
Intel’s education director, Martina Roth, told The Daily Star Egypt that while private companies can push for change and help out with an “independent approach, “the government is the only one who has ownership [of the education system].
However, she adds that Intel is keeping close tabs on the program and will monitor its progress.
“We’re here to help.
